Armory Research

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Information on armory (device/Coat-of-Arms, badges) and design can be found in several places on the web, including the West Kingdom Herald's Handbook.

The following are some of them. Please note that just because someone has posted it on the web does not mean it is necessarily a good resource, you should always verify your information with a herald.

From the West Kingdom Herald's Handbook

Getting Advice on Heraldry (How to Help the College of Heralds Help You) A
Books on Armory A
A Very Basic Introduction to Heraldry A
Philosophical Roots of Heraldic Design A
Insta-Bounce Checklist A (A listing of armory decisions that will cause your submission to be immediately returned)
Reserved and Prohibited Charges A (Items you shouldn't try to register with the heralds)

The Following is a multi-part (it's not small) article that while aimed at Scribes is very good for anyone interested in heraldic design, as it talks about heraldry with the assumption that you're not a herald:
Heraldry For Scribes Part 1 A
Heraldry For Scribes Part 2 A
Heraldry For Scribes Part 3 A
Heraldry For Scribes Part 4 A
Heraldry For Scribes Part 5 A
Heraldry For Scribes Part 6 A
Heraldry For Scribes Part 7 A

The Armorial and Ordinary

The SCA's Armorial and Ordinary is a huge document that lists all of the registrations in the SCA and other armory that we use in conflict checking. The Armorial is an alphabetic listing of this information, the Ordinary is broken down into categories ... The Latimer Herald of the West Kingdom has put together PDF versions of this data that you can either download or view and search here:

Full Armorial, through June 2007A
Updates to the Armorial, from January 2004 through June 2007A

Full Ordinary, through June 2007A
Updates to the Ordinary, from January 2004 through June 2007A

From the Laurel Sovereign of Arms' website

Laurel "Education" Website
Look for the sections "Articles on Blazonry" and "The Armory Submissions Process".

Misc. Other Sites of Interest:

Websites about European Armory:
http://www.heraldica.org/topics/britain/scotbiblio.htm (An Annotated Bibliography of Scottish Heraldic Materials)

Websites about Middle/Near East Armory:
http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~heraldry/page_islam.html (Lots of good images, as well as some good text)
http://users.panola.com/AAGHS/manluk.html (Article by Da'ud ibn Auda, also lots of good images, and Da'ud is a former Laurel Sovereign of Arms)

Websites about Far Eastern Armory:
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/mons/ (An Essay on Mons, from the Laurel Sovereign of Arms website)

Book Heraldry Page Main Herald's Page

A -- Items with a red 'A' by them require the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader (freeware), downloadable from: Acrobat
-- Items that show this image by them are ones that are links to other websites ...
-- Items with a checkmark by them are pages you have visited ...